Is There a Smoking Hole in the Future of TV and Print?

I think yes, powerful vicious circles are converging around the traditional TV and Print media formats. They must face a new revenue reality. They must face accountability. Their God Complex days are over.

The interdependent nature of the variables in vicious circles means that different circles can become coincident and reinforcing, creating a perfect storm. TV and Print will be pulled through a vortex much more powerful than radio, and after which their look and capacity will be very much different than today.

An unspeakable degree of financial revenue destruction has been initiated. Advertising, especially classified advertising is shifting to the Internet, to the new media. Classified advertising had been the financial spine of newspapers, cross-subsidizing reporting, political commentary and editorial activities (See Free Press Article). It represented 30% (See Newspapers Suffer) to 37% of newspaper revenues (See Media Manager).

Accountability. That dread word. On the corporate side of this table, marketing has acted like a junkie in the boardrooms, tin-cupping for money without demonstrable value. On the other hand, the new media can provide the metrics that management wants.

It is plainly clear from current events that revenue base destruction, and accountability will change the business model in the traditional media of TV and Print. Their days of royal power are numbered, and they will become more of a first among equals in the world shaped by the new media.

For a more complete analysis see Redmond Review Smoking Hole.